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Towards a Cyber Deterrent: Are we getting any closer?

November 14, 2009 By

A year and a half ago I pulled together several thoughts on Cyber Deterrence which had come out of years of dialog on the cyber threat.   I wanted to capture some key challenges since in my view many were making foolish assumptions regarding what our nation should do in the domain of cyber.  There is also a great deal of wise thought but this is not a topic we should treat lightly.  In my view the wrong policy of cyber deterrence could be escalatory and have the unintended consequence of being bad for national security.

A great deal has changed over the last year and a half and I think it is time to update the paper.   I’ll be sending it around to friends in the Cyber Conflict Studies Association and asking if they can point me to related research.  I’ll e-mail it to government and national security thought leaders and ask if they have comments/thoughts they can share.  I would also very much appreciate the views of technologists, since so much of this topic must be discussed with a good understanding of the technology foundations of Cyber.

So, I wanted to ask… If you have a few minutes would you please look over the May 2008 version of this paper and give me your thoughts?  It is here:

http://ctovision.com/references/towards-a-cyber-deterrent/

Filed Under: CTO, Cyber Security, Gov2.0 Tagged With: ,
About BobGourley

Bob Gourley is Crucial Point LLC’s founder and editor of CTOvision.com. Bob has received industry recognition including Infoworld top CTO award, AFCEA’s meritorious service award, and recognition as one of the top 100 “Tech Titans” in DC by Washingtonian magazine. He was named one of the “Top 25 Most Fascinating Communicators in Government IT.”

  • dunsany

    I feel the answer lies in a different direction for cyber-deterrence – more of a counter-intelligence model. http://www.iedtalk.com/2009/07/slides-and-notes…..

  • http://ctovision.com ctovision

    Thanks Dunsany for the link. I tend to agree that the counter intel model has been undersupported and I appreciate your comment and the brief at the link. Thanks!

  • Anonymous

    I feel the answer lies in a different direction for cyber-deterrence – more of a counter-intelligence model. http://www.iedtalk.com/2009/07/slides-and-notes.html

  • http://ctovision.com Bob Gourley

    Thanks Dunsany for the link. I tend to agree that the counter intel model has been undersupported and I appreciate your comment and the brief at the link. Thanks!

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  • http://twotheories.blogspot.com/ david ronfeldt

    tim steven's ubiwar blog led me here. what i was hoping for was moroe clarification about how best to organize, formally and informally, for cyber defense. your paper makes passing reference to assembling efforts by "a broad swath of experts in industry, academia and government" and from "Cross-functional, cross-discipline, public and private intellectual work". but otherwise this organizational design aspect is unclear. i don't have the answer, but i tried to offer some points here, for what they're worth:http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/07/toward-…..a main point is that the overall design should include a lot more than just key government and big industry actors.

  • http://twotheories.blogspot.com/ david ronfeldt

    tim steven's ubiwar blog led me here. what i was hoping for was moroe clarification about how best to organize, formally and informally, for cyber defense. your paper makes passing reference to assembling efforts by "a broad swath of experts in industry, academia and government" and from "Cross-functional, cross-discipline, public and private intellectual work". but otherwise this organizational design aspect is unclear. i don't have the answer, but i tried to offer some points here, for what they're worth:http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/07/toward-…..a main point is that the overall design should include a lot more than just key government and big industry actors.

  • http://twotheories.blogspot.com/ david ronfeldt

    tim steven’s ubiwar blog led me here. what i was hoping for was moroe clarification about how best to organize, formally and informally, for cyber defense. your paper makes passing reference to assembling efforts by “a broad swath of experts in industry, academia and government” and from “Cross-functional, cross-discipline, public and private intellectual work”. but otherwise this organizational design aspect is unclear. i don’t have the answer, but i tried to offer some points here, for what they’re worth:

    http://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/07/toward-collaborative-community-for.html

    a main point is that the overall design should include a lot more than just key government and big industry actors.